jschrauwen

Just had my first carbon cleaning done on my 2008 A5 3.2L with 80k miles.
There wasn't a significant amount of carbon build up as compared to other engines I've seen, but nonetheless it has made a difference.
I purchased a media blasting machine (Harbour Frieght in the US and Princess Auto in Canada) and a 50LB bag of walnut shells..
I used the Ford Prefect (Audizine screen name) carbon cleaning adapter which makes the process quick, effective and clean.
My local euro shop did the carbon cleaning using that adapter as their compressor has an inline water/moisture eliminator which prevents the walnut shells from clumping and plugging up the blaster nozzle. My local shop asked to use the video I made of my carbon cleaning as part of a promo for them - this would explain the reason for the title of the video.

alansd

did you see a performance change?I hit 81,000 on my 2012 and it seems to be running great ,to me anyway.I use only top tier gas and requently drive in S mode to keep revs up.

jschrauwen

I wasn't get any CEL's or any warnings of any sort myself and it's difficult to say if I was experiencing any sort of power loss to begin with as I usually strive to do spirited driving whenever possible. I too always use top tier (ethanol free) fuel as well. I always had my oil changes done by 5000 mile intervals using Motul oil. My K&N air filter was always cleaned and re-oiled at least once a year. I had the intake plenum removed to inspect for carbon build-up 2.5 years ago (100k kms) and it didn't appear bad at all. But now at 130k kms, I figured it was time anyway. Call it a preventative measure.
Cold starts are much easier now. The idle is much smoother as well. Acceleration (performance) is better as well. I have yet to do a lengthy highway drive to determine if my gas mileage has also improved. Hope this helps.

alansd

yes, thanks.
i have a great shop I use regularly.